Tom Brown (poet)
Tom Brown (1663 - 16 June 1704) was an English poet, translator, and writer of satire, best known today for a 4-line gibe he wrote concerning Dr. John Fell.Tom Brown, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. Web, May 3, 2016. Life Overview Brown was educated at Oxford, and there composed the famous epigram on Dr. Fell. He was for a few years schoolmaster at Kingston-on-Thames, but owing to his irregularities lost the appointment, and went to London, where he wrote satires, epigrams, and miscellaneous pieces, generally coarse and scurrilous.John William Cousin, "Brown, Tom," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 50. Web, Dec. 21, 2017. Youth and education Brown, the son of a farmer, was born in 1663 at Shropshire in Shropshire county. He was educated at Newport school, in the same county.Bullen, 29. He proceeded in 1678 to Christ Church, Oxford, where his irregular habits brought him into trouble. Allegedly the dean of Christ Church, Dr. Fell, threatened to expel him, but on receipt of a submissive letter promised to forgive him if he would translate extempore the epigram of Martial (i. 32) — :Non amo te, Sábidi, nec possum dícere quare; :hoc tantum possum dícere: non amo te. which Brown promptly rendered by — ﻿ I do not love thee, Dr. Fell, ﻿The reason why I cannot tell ; ﻿But this I know, and know full well, ﻿I do not love thee. Dr. Fell. Brown afterwards made amends by writing the doctor's epitaph.Bullen, 30. Some English verses by Brown are prefixed to Creech's translation of Lucretius, 1682, and there is a copy of his Latin verses, entitled "Soteria Ormondiana," in Musæ Oxonienses. He contributed some translations from Horace to Miscellany Poems by Oxford Hands, 1685. Career Leaving the university without a degree, he came to London, and endeavoured to support himself by his pen; but, finding it difficult to procure employment, he reluctantly accepted the post of usher in a school at Kingston-on-Thames. Writing to a friend at this date, he says: :I ventured once or twice to launch my little bark amongst the adventurous rovers of the pen, but with such little success that for the present I have abandoned all hopes of doing anything that way.... The prodigal son, when he was pressed by hunger and thirst, joined himself to a swineherd; and I have been driven by the same stimuli to join myself to a swine, an ignorant pedagogue about twelve miles out of town. He was afterwards appointed head-master of the grammar school at Kingston-on-Thames. Having spent 3 years in school work, he settled in London, and devoted himself to the production of satirical poems and pamphlets, varying this employment with translations from Greek, Latin, French, and Spanish authors. In 1687 he contributed supplementary "Reflections on the Hind and the Panther" to Matthew Clifford's Four Letters on John Dryden; and in the following years, assuming the pseudonym Dudley Tomkinson, he assailed Dryden in a spiteful, though not unamusing, pamphlet, entitled The Reasons of Mr. Bays' changing his religion, considered in a dialogue between Crites, Eugenius, and Mr. Bays, 4to, of which a 2nd part was published in 1690 under the title of The Reasons of the New Convert's taking the Oaths,' 4to, and a 3rd part, The Reason of Mr. Hains the Player's Conversion and Reconversion, in 1691, 4to. In 1691 he published The Weesils: A satiyrical fable giving the account of some argumental passages happening in the lion's court about Weesilion's taking the oaths, London, 1691, 4to, an attack on Dr. Sherlock. An anonymous satire on Durfey, Wit for Money; or, Poet stutter; a dialogue,' 1691, 4to, may probably be assigned to Brown, who, in the same year, assailed 3 prominent clergymen in an anonymous pamphlet entitled, Novus Reformat or Vapulans; or, The Welsh Levite tossed in a blanket: In a dialogue between Hickeringill of Colchester, David Jones and the Ghost of Wil. Pryn, 4to. About this time Brown started the Lacedæmonian Mercury, in opposition to Dunton's Athenian Mercury;' but the paper had only a short run. In August 1693 he wrote a copy of satirical verses on the occasion of the marriage of Titus Oates ("The Salamancan Wedding; or, A true account of a swearing doctor's marriage with a Muggletonian widow," halfsheet), for which performance he is said to have been apprehended and punished. Many of Brown's humorous and satirical verses were published in A Collection of Miscellany Poems, Letters, &c., by Mr. Brown, &c., London, 1699, 8vo. On p. 49 of this collection is a bitter attack by Brown on Tom Durfey, beginning — :﻿Thou cur, half French, half English breed, ﻿:Thou mongrel of Parnassus. Elsewhere (Works, ed. 1719-1721, v. 65) he has some amusing verses on a duel fought at Epsom in 1689 between Durfey and Bell, a musician. In a Session of the Poets there is a mock trial of Durfey and Brown, held at the foot of Parnassus on 9 July 1696. Sir Richard Blackmore was one of the special objects of his aversion; he edited in 1700 a collection of mock Commendatory Verses on the Author of the Two Arthurs and the Satyr against Wit by some of his particular Friends,' fol. For writing a Satyr upon the French King on the Peace of Keswick (Works, i. 89, ed. 1707) he was committed to prison; and the story goes that he procured his release by addressing to the lords in council a Pindaric petition, which concludes thus: ﻿ ﻿﻿The pulpit alone ﻿﻿ Can never preach down ﻿﻿ The fops of the town. ﻿﻿﻿ Then pardon Tom Brown ﻿﻿﻿ And let him write on: But if you had rather convert the poor sinner. His fast writing mouth may be stopped with a ﻿dinner. Give him clothes to his back, some meat and ﻿much drink, Then clap him close prisoner without pen and ink. And your petitioner shall neither pray, write, ﻿nor think. Brown's name is found on the list of contributors to the variorum translations of Petronius (1708), Lucian (1711), and Scarron (1772). Brown's life was as licentious as his writings. Much of his time was spent in a low taven in Gower's Row in the Minories. His knowledge of London was certainly "extensive and peculiar," and his humorous sketches of low life are both entertaining and valuable. An anonymous biographer says: "Tom Brown had less the spirit of a gentleman than the rest of the wits, and more of a scholar.... As of his mistresses, so he was very negligent in the choice of his companions, who were sometimes mean and despicable." Brown died in Aldersgate Street on 16 June 1704, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, near his friend Aphra Behn. Writing Shortly after his death appeared a Collection of all the Dialogues of Mr. Thomas Brown, 1704, 8vo, to which was appended a letter (the genuineness of which was attested by Thomas Wotton, curate of St. Lawrence Jewry) purporting to have been written by Brown on his deathbed. Li this letter Brown, after expressing regret for having written anything that would be likely to have a pernicious influence, protests against being responsible for 'lampoons, trips, London Spies,' in which he had no hand. He was too lazy, he tells us, to write much, and yet pamphlets good and bad of every kind has been fathered upon him. A whimsical description of Brown's experiences on his arrival in Hades was published under the title of A Letter from the dead Thomas Brown to the living Herodotus, 1704, 8vo. An epitaph, written shortly after his death, contains the lines— :Each merry wag throughout the town :Will toast the memory of Brown, :Who laugh'd a race of rascals down.Bullen, 31. Brown's satirical writings are more remarkable for coarseness than for wit. In worrying an adversary he was strangely pertinacious; he never would let a quarrel drop, but returned to the attack again and again. Addison, in his essay on the "Potency of Mystery and Innuendo" (Spectator, No. 567), after mentioning that some writers, "when they would be more satirical than ordinary, omit only the vowels of a great man's name, and fall most mercifully upon all the consonants," adds that Tom Brown, "of facetious memory," was the first to bring the practice into fashion. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica gives this verdict: "He was the author of a great variety of poems, letters, dialogues and lampoons, full of humour and erudition, but coarse and scurrilous. His writings have a certain value for the knowledge they display of low life in London."Brown, Thomas (English satirist), Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 4 1911, p. 662. Wikisource, Web, May 3, 2016. A collected edition of Brown's works in 3 volumes, with a character of the author by James Drake, M.D., was published in 1707-8, 8vo. Vol. I. contains essays, poems, satires, and epigrams; original letters; translations of Aristænetus's letters, and of letters from Latin and French. Vol. II. is entirely occupied with ' Letters from the Dead to the Living' (which had been previously published in 1702). These are partly original and partly translated from the French. Brown wrote only a portion of the collection. The contents of vol. iii. are: 'Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London' (separately published in 1700); 'Letters Serious and Comical;' 'Pocket-book of Common Places;' 'A Walk round London and Westminster;' 'The Dispensary, a Farce;' 'The London and Lacedæmonian Oracles.' The fourth edition, in four volumes 8vo, is dated 1719; a supplementary volume of 'Remains' (incorporated in later editions) followed in 1721. The eighth and final edition was published in 1760, 4 vols. 8vo. Two (unacted) comedies aro not included in the collected editions: Physic lies a-bleeding; or, The apothecary turned doctor, 1697, 4to., and The Stage-Beaux Tossed in a Blanket; or, Hypocrisy à-la-mode, 1704, 4to, a comedy in 3 acts, satirising Jeremy Collier. Among Brown's scattered writings are: #'Lives of all the Princes of Orange, from the French of Baron Mourier; to which is added the Life of King William the Third,' 1693, 8vo. #'Life of the famous Duke de Richelieu, from the French of Du Plessis,' 1696. #'France and Spain naturally Enemies, from the Spanish of C. Garoia.' #'Miscellanea Aulica; or a Collection of State Treatises,' 1702, with a preface of 10 pages by Brown. #'Short Dissertation about the Mona in Caesar and Tacitus,' appended to Sacheverell's 'Account of the Isle of Man,' 1702, 12mo. #'Marriage Ceremonies as now used in all Parts of the World.' Written originally in Italian by Signor Gaya, third edition, 1704. #'Justin's History of the World made English by Mr. T. Brown,' second edition, 1712, 12mo. Recognition Brown is buried in the east cloister of Westminster Abbey.Thomas Brown, People, History, Westminster Abbey. Web, July 11, 2016. A collection of Beauties of Tom Brown, with a preface by C.H. Wilson, and a coloured folding frontispiece by Thomas Rowlandson, was published in 1808, 8vo. Publications Poetry *''The Weesils: A satirical fable''. London: 1691. *''A Description of Mr. D—'s Funeral: A poem. London: A. Baldwin, 1700. *''Commendatory Verses on the Author of the Two Arthurs, and the Satyr against Wit. London: 1700. Novel *''The Adventures of Lindamira, a Lady of Quality''. London: Richard Wellington, 1702. **(edited by Benjamin Boyce). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1949. Short fiction *''Ceramen Epistolare; or, Letters between an attorney and a dead person'' (published with Cicero, Select Epistles). London: Sam. Briscoe, for J. Nutt, 1702. Non-fiction *''The Reasons of Mr. Bayes changing his Religion''. London: S.T., 1688. *''The Late Converts Exposed''. London: Thomas Bennett, 1690. *''The Reasons of Mr. Joseph Hains the player's conversion and reconversion''. London: Richard Baldwin, 1690. *''The Reasons of the New Convert's Taking the Oaths''. London: 1691. *''Wit for Money; or, poet stutterer''. London: S. Burgess, 1691. *''Novus reformatur vapulans; or, the Welch Levite tossed in a blanket''. London: Will. Pryn, 1691. *''The Salamanca Wedding, in a letter''. London: 1693. *''Amusements Serious and Comical: Calculated for the meridian of London''. London: John Nutt, 1700 **(edited by Arthur Lawrence Haywood). London: Routledge, 1927. *''The Infallible Astrologer'' by Brown. 1701. *''Laconics: or new maxims of state and conversation'' (with others). London: Thomas Hodgson, 1701. *''Advice to the Kentish Long-tails''. 1701. *''The mourning poet''. London: 1703. *''A Collection of All the Dialogues Written by Mr. Thomas Brown''. London: John Nutt, 1704. *''The Dying Thoughts and Last Reflections: In a letter to a friend''. London: A. Roper, 1704. *''The Stage-beaux Toss'd in a Blanket''. London: J. Nutt, 1704. *''A Legacy for the Ladies; or, Characters of the women of the age'' (with Edward Ward). London: H. Meere, for S. Briscoe, 1705. Collected editions *''Collection of miscellany poems, letters, etc''. London: John Sparks, 1699, 1700. *''The Works: In prose and verse''. (2 vols), London: Sam. Briscoe, for B. Bragg, 1707; (4 volumes), London: Sam. Briscoe, for R. Smith, 1715. *''The Beauties of Tom Brown'' (edited by Charles Henry Wilson). London: L. Harrison, for T. & R. Hughes, 1808. Translated *Madame d;Aulnoy, Memoirs of the Court of Spain. London: T. Horn / F. Saunders / T. Bennet, 1692. *St. Everemond, Miscellany Essays (translated with others). London: John Charingham & Abel Roper, 1694. *Jean Le Clerc, Life of Richelieu. London: M. Gillyflower / W. Freeman / J. Walthoe / R. Parker, 1695. *Abbe de Forcroy, A new and easy method to understand the Roman history. London: R. Baldwin / W. Lindsay, 1695. *Jean LeClerc, Twelve Dissertations out of Genesis. London: R. Baldwin, 1696. *Erasmus, Seven new colloquies. London: Charles Brown, 1699. *Paul Scarron, The whole comical works (translated with others). London: S. & J. Sprint / J. Nicholson / R. Parker / Benj. Tooke, 1700. *Giovanni Battista Gelli, The Circe. London: John Nutt, 1702. *Cicero, Select Epistles and Letters. London: Sam. Briscoe, for J. Nutt, 1702. * Marcus Junianus Justinus, Justin's history of the world. London: John Hartley, 1702. *Carlos Garcia, France and Spain naturally enemies. London: J. Hartley ... / T. Hodgson / R. Gibson, 1704. *Goya, A Looking-glass for Married People; or, The fantastick adventures of Sir E— H— with his seven wives. London: 1704. Edited *''Familiar letters written by the Earl of Rochester'' (2 volumes), London: W. Onley, for Sam. Briscoe, 1697; London: Rich. Wellington, 1699. *''Miscellanea aulica: or a collection of state-treatises''. London: J. Hartley / Rob. Gibson / Tho. Hodgson, 1702. *''Letters from the Dead to the Living''. London: 1702. *''The miscellaneous works of the Duke of Buckingham''. (2 volumes), London: S. Briscoe, for J. Nutt, 1704-1705. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Thomas Browne 1704, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 4, 2016. See also * List of British poets References * Wikisource, Web, Dec. 21, 2017. Notes External links ;Poems *Selected Poetry of Tom Brown (ca. 1663-1704) ("Doctor Fell") at Representative Poetry Online *Brown in Poetica Erotica: "A Satire on Marriage, "Melinda's Misfortune on the Burning of Her Smock" *Thomas Brown at Poetry Nook (55 poems) ;About *Tom Brown in the Encyclopædia Britannica *Brown, Thomas (English satirist) in the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' 1911 *Brown, Thomas (1663-1704) in the Dictionary of National Biography *Thomas Brown (1663-1704) at English Poetry, 1579-1830 *[http://www.bartleby.com/219/1007.html Tom Brown's Amusements] in the Cambridge History of English and American Literature * Brown, Thomas (1663-1704) Category:1662 births Category:1704 deaths Category:English satirists Category:People from Newport, Shropshire Category:Newport, Shropshire Category:People educated at Adams' Grammar School Category:17th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:English poets Category:Poets